In conclusion, it must be borne in mind that criticism is not an end but a means to an end. All the literary criticism ever uttered would be useless as such if it did not evince a desire to further the development of literary art. The _Iliad_ and the _Oedipus_ were written long before Aristotle's _Poetics_, and it is not likely that either Homer or Sophocles would have been a greater poet if he could have read the Stagirite's treatise. Yet the _Poetics_, as a summary of the essential features of that art, served an important purpose in later ages and exerted far-reaching influences. Criticism in all ages has necessarily been of less importance than art itself--it guides and suggests, but cannot create. Literary history shows that true criticism must be in conformity with the spirit of the age; it cannot oppose the trend of intelligent opinion. It may praise, censure, advise, interpret--but it will always remain subservient to the art that called it forth. There is no reason to believe that criticism can ever be established in the English-speaking world upon a basis that will subject to an arbitrary and irrevocable ruling the form and spirit of the artist's message to mankind.
[Footnote A: Reprinted in Professor Arber's _The Term Catalogues_ (1668-1709). London, privately printed, 1903.]
[Footnote B: See the centenary number of the _Edinburgh Review_ (October, 1902). During the editor's recent tenure of government office, the review was temporarily edited by Mr. E.S. Roscoe.]
[Footnote C: See his letter in _Athenæum_, January 19, 1878. See also "Our Seventieth Birthday," _Athenæum_, January 1, 1898.]
[Footnote D: Mr. Bertram Dobell in his _Side-Lights on Charles Lamb_ (1903) directs attention to some hitherto unknown articles of Lamb's in the _London Magazine_.]
[Footnote E: In July, 1902, the _Quarterly Review_ published its first signed article--the widely-discussed paper on Charles Dickens by Mr. Algernon Charles Swinburne. Since then several other noteworthy articles have appeared over the authors' signatures.]
British Museum. Catalogue of Printed Books. Periodicals. (Revised ed., 1900.)
Encyclopedia Britannica. Article on Periodicals, by H.R. Tedder.
Barrow, Sir John. Autobiography. London, 1847.